This Deadly Engine Read online

  “So if I die, then he dies, too?”

  She nodded once.

  The responsibility for two lives fell on me. Or him. Or both?

  More questions without answers!

  I asked the elf, “Since we are working together, what should I call you? You have never told me your name.”

  “My name is not your concern. Concentrate only on the task.” She motioned for Pienne to proceed.

  Seeing a needle always made me squirm. Watching Pienne nervously waving one about almost sent me out of the chair. I pressed against the back as hard as possible. I needed to take his mind off of the elixir. “Pienne…I managed to secure a few vials from your original laboratory. They are in my room in the north transept.” When the needle continued to shake, I added, “Pienne…take a deep breath.”

  The elixir maestro paused to do so. His hand settled. He gave a quick smile – more like a smirk – then pushed the needle into my skin.

  The initial pinch of pain made me cringe. I waited for the familiar burning sensation to rush through my veins before carrying me away.

  Pienne hesitated. His lips tightened as his chins – all three – quivered.

  “Begin the process,” the elf said. She placed both of her hands on my right forearm.

  Pienne took a deep breath, then injected the elixir.

  It struck unlike any other. Fire blazed into my veins and shot to all parts of my body in an instant. I only managed a gasp before darkness consumed me.

  The roar of a thousand airship engines filled my ears. Words…fragments of speech…cut through, but quickly disappeared in the cacophony. In the same way, smears of red, white, purple, green, and yellow pierced the darkness only to be overwhelmed by the black. Rather than floating in the usual, numbing nothingness of the magic, waves of seemingly random sensations beat, pushed, and pulled at me – the smell of pea soup cooking over a fire, the sight of a duck roasting, the mocking laughter of children, water surrounding me such that I struggled for air, the wind blowing one way and then another, hot sand beneath my feet.

  A light flashed, and I blocked it with my hand. I blinked until the colors took shape, and familiar images slowly came into focus.

  The roar lessened until it settled into the call of birds flying overhead…ones with foot-long beaks, two rows of symmetrically spaced spikes on their backs, and green feathers on their wings. The sun reflected off the tops of orange waves as they broke and rolled onto the white sand into which my toes dug.

  Someone howled from the end of a stone pier. Father held a twenty-foot rod bent to the point of breaking. Yet…he was not my father…we had never visited a beach. I had never walked on the sand.

  Or had I?

  Two others, a woman with straight black hair that flowed in the wind, and a girl, who rose to the woman’s waist and had hair an equal color, ran onto the pier. They cheered and yelled something about a perfect time for dinner. Both were strangers, yet their familiarity gave a sense of comfort, of belonging, and of peace.

  I stopped working on my sculpture of a giant crab and stared at my tanned arms and at hands caked with sand. They ached as if they had grown five inches in a moment.

  These are not my hands.

  Are they?

  Father roared again. A sea dragon leapt from the waves. Its purple head twisted towards the pier, towards Father’s rod. Greenish-blue scales shimmered in the light as it rolled. Fin-wings, black as Mum’s hair, flapped and sent it higher still. Its long tail, which ended in three sharp points with webbing between, slapped the surface and sent a spray twenty feet high.

  My sister yelled, “Catch it! Hurry, Father!”

  Mum paused to look at me. She pushed the hair out of her eye and motioned for me to hurry. “Come on, Jeran. Your father needs help.”

  Who is Jeran?

  Sand fell from my knees and arms when I stood.

  “Hurry, Jeran. Don’t be so slow.”

  The words bit deep, like I had heard them a thousand times before.

  In the back of my mind children chanted, “Jeran is dumb! Jeran is slow! Jeran is a big oaf!” They circled me, and I stared each of them in the eye.

  I can take them all. But where do I start?

  “Jeran,” Mum said. “Please stop dreaming and help.”

  I did as told and ran across the sand. Pain shot through my calves and thighs. I stumbled as the sea dragon leapt high again. Its body passed before the sun, where it hung for a moment, its form silhouetted in the light. When it fell, so did I.

  The darkness returned and with it the push and pull of sensations – a strap striking my back, the taste of dust, the crunch of grit between my teeth, the ache of muscles after a day of exhausting work. Rocks crushed me on the left. Waves pushed me on the right.

  It all collapsed on top of me, driving me down…down…down…

  I arose, gasping, and with a mouth full of saltwater. Pain shot through my ribs as I flew eight feet into deeper water. Just after a swell covered me, a hand grabbed my hair. It pulled me up.

  The house burned. Flames filled the windows, and the curtains fell, trailing smoke. A woman screamed as two giants pulled her from inside. They dragged her by her long, black hair. She kicked and screamed and tried to hit anything she could.

  Animals – the alloops and the darkins – screamed and whinnied from the barn. Flames consumed it, too. They rose twenty feet high and brightened the night like the sun in the mornings.

  Seeing the sunrise always made me feel as if a new beginning awaited. The colors never disappointed.

  Now a sunrise would never look the same again.

  Another scream pierced the roaring flames and angry waves. A giant gave my sister such a strong backhand that she toppled on the pier. The giant started to jump on top of her, but another caught his arm. They exchanged harsh words.

  They hurt my family.

  I twisted from the grasp of the giant behind me, leaving him with a fistful of hair. I punched him low, where it would hurt the most. When he doubled over, I brought my knee up to meet his face. Teeth flew from his mouth. He fell into the water.

  I grabbed my shovel, the one I used to dig for night burrows, and ran for the pier, for my family.

  Why did Father not help?

  A giant, one close to my height, yelled as he ran for me. I split his head open with the shovel. The blow snapped the handle in half.

  Another giant swept towards me. He swung a club half the size of a tree. I ducked beneath it, then grabbed hold of him. We fell into the water and he struck me hard on the back. A dull throb almost made me let go.

  But I had to save my family.

  A yell erupted from deep within. I stood with the giant on my shoulders. He hit me again with his club.

  I lifted him over my head, then threw him into the waves.

  I ran for the pier, where giants shackled Mum and Sera. They treated my family like common animals. The tallest one, who wore metal armor and a helmet that looked like an alloops with long fangs, pointed to the boat at the end of the pier. He also pointed to me.

  Three of his men hurried to capture me.

  I would break them in half.

  I stretched my fingers. I stretched my neck to loosen my shoulders.

  A flash of light sent me face down onto the sand. A shot of pain in the back of my head followed.

  “Wait,” an orc with a gruff voice said. He chewed on a piece of black flendim – an addictive candy that rotted the teeth, but increased strength. He spit. “This one is strong. He will fetch a good price. Save him.”

  Hands lifted me by the shoulders.

  “I owe him one more,” a giant said.

  He struck hard enough to make the light flash again. Silence followed.

  A sharp poke in the back encouraged me to hurry up ten steps and into the waiting daylight. I had to blink several times before making out the details of the small stadium. Five rows of seats lined three sides of the square. The first row stood ten feet higher than the floor. A s
tone platform waited in the middle of the square, where the orc with the gruff voice and the flendim overlooked the dirt-covered stage on which I found myself.

  He eyed the crowd. “Next on the block is a young cyclops. Aged about fifty years. He possesses unusual strength and determination. If you doubt me, then ask the three giants it took to subdue him. He is mostly unharmed and is an excellent physical specimen as you can see.”

  A giant with a beard that covered everything except the tip of his nose, the circle of his eyes, and a line across his forehead, pushed my shoulder. “Turn around. Show them.”

  I turned so they could see the full measure of my body. Heat rose in my cheeks.

  Only, this was not my body. I was not…at that place.

  The giant poked my arm. “Raise them. Show them.”

  If I dreamed, then why did the poke hurt so much?

  The orc said, “The bidding will begin at fifty marks. Do I have – yes, there is fifty, and another ten makes it – and another? We have seventy, no ninety marks.” And so the bidding went.

  I had hoped to see Father and Mum and Sera. My last glimpse of them came a week ago when they removed us from the ship. I would have saved them had my arms not been clamped to my sides with metal bands.

  Mum had said, “Stay alive, my dear. Do what they say.”

  I obeyed her, even though I might never see her again. My family had been condemned to the dread and fear felt by every cyclops since the First Great Conflict – to enslavement. The best we could hope for were masters who sometimes showed kindness.

  “Three hundred marks,” the orc said. “We can do better. This one will give you many years of service.” The creature laughed. “Three hundred fifty marks. That is an improvement!”

  “Five hundred,” an orc said as he walked down the aisle of the center seats. He stood taller than any others of his kind. He had a less severe underbite and smoother cheeks. His brown eyes gazed into my soul, and his voice carried the expectation of obedience. “That should end all bidding.”

  He looked familiar. Too familiar.

  The orc on the platform said, “We have five hundred marks. Would anyone else care to bid?”

  “I said that the bidding is ended,” the other orc said.

  The one on the platform pointed his hammer. “You might expect obedience in most places, Frengarn, but our laws require fair and open bids for slaves. I am in charge of this auction. Try to take it over again, and I will have you thrown out of this arena. Do you understand?”

  Frengarn. What is he doing here?

  The orc gave a graceful bow. “Then you misunderstand me. I will take this cyclops for whatever price is necessary. I only meant that the offer should suffice to end the bidding.”

  The one above stared at Frengarn for a moment, then beat his hammer on his table. “That should end—”

  “Seven hundred fifty marks,” an elf said.

  Frengarn smiled, revealing a row of sharpened teeth. “Seven hundred fifty-one marks.”

  “Eight hundred,” the elf said.

  Frengarn turned to his competitor. “And if I let you win the creature for eight hundred, then what?”

  The elf stood with hunched shoulders. Thin strands of white hair covered the back of his head. “Then I keep you from getting him, and I gain a useful servant. Since you tried to kill me last week, perhaps I will make him my personal bodyguard.”

  Frengarn’s smile grew wider. “You mistake me for someone else. I am not in the business of killing.”

  The elf folded his arms. “Do not take me for a fool. One thousand marks for the cyclops.”

  Frengarn’s smile faded. He glared at his competitor and said, “Two thousand marks.” When the other started to speak, his look of hatred and spite caused the elf’s words to fail.

  The orc banged his hammer. “You two may settle your differences somewhere else. The cyclops is sold for two thousand marks. And if you ask me, that is still a bargain.”

  “I did not ask,” Frengarn said. He motioned for me to be brought to him.

  Another sharp poke by the giant encouraged me to go.

  Five needles in each arm injected a combination of elixirs that would result in an agonizing death for anyone other than a cyclops. Despite my resilient physique, however, the mixture still dealt a biting cold and a searing heat that made my arms ache and throb. When the sensation oozed throughout the remainder of my body, my chest grew hot, and my legs turned numb with cold. Waves of fire raced into my head. Waves of ice followed. Everything spun. My belly heaved.

  Frengarn held my head back. “You will endure!” He clamped my jaw closed. “You will survive this magic.”

  An elf stood next to him. She wore the black robes of the Treyo Duthku. She also wore a black, choker-style necklace with diamonds inset every inch around it. Her eyes indicated that she had been crying. Sadness filled them as if she pitied me.

  My arm tingled where she held me. The soothing sensation undermined the chaotic pulsing of the heat and cold as it worked its way into my shoulder, then my head.

  Frengarn said, “You will welcome the feeling. You will embrace the magic. You will enjoy it.”

  His words comforted me, not unlike a hug from Mum. In the same way I tried to obey her, I would try to obey the orc. Only the magic mattered, even if it tried to rip me apart from the inside. I would accept it.

  “Look at me.” When I did, he said, “You have a very special assignment. You are going through the Gateway where you will be given to a human. You are to obey his commands. You are to follow his orders, else I will deal with you personally. And that is something you do not want, is it?”

  I tried to shake my head, but he still held it firm.

  “The price of disobedience is death for you and for your dear sister.”

  “Sera?” I whispered. Anger rose at the thought of her being a slave…but the soothing sensation washed the emotion away.

  Frengarn said, “She is my slave, too. I can do many terrible things to her if you disobey me. If you do anything less than what your human master commands.”

  My very bones ached at the assurance of the terrible, terrible things he would do. I wanted to cry…only…cyclopes never cried. Instead, we roared and beat our enemies into submission.

  A wave of heat replaced the soothing sensation. It raced from my arm and into my head, distorting my vision. Frengarn grew taller. His nose lengthened, and his eyes disappeared into bottomless pits. His chin widened. Bits of ice flew from his mouth when he spoke. “You are stronger than the giants. You are mightier than the trolls. Your skin is as thick as your mind is simple. Nothing else matters. Your past is gone. Except for your sister. She is the key to your living and surviving. Remember her, but no one else.”

  Fire consumed my head. It ate at my brain as it ripped away Mum and Father. It burned away any thought of home and of friends. Their names, at the tip of my tongue, slipped into nothingness.

  “From this day forward, you are Perrin.”

  No, not Perrin. Someone else.

  But who? Someone who knows…Rebecca?

  Rebecca…who?

  He spoke with a force that pressed me against the chair. “Perrin who serves.”

  The burning grew more intense. Surely flames would consume me.

  “Say the name. Who are you?”

  I refused to answer. Perrin was a stranger. I was a man.

  No, I was a cyclops.

  Or both? How could that be?

  Frengarn’s ice poured into my mouth and nose. Instead of quenching the flames, it fed them and increased the pain to the point that my eye grew heavy. The world turned darker. “Who are you?” he roared from within my head.

  I am Jeran. I am Alexander.

  He screamed with such force that my body convulsed. “Who. Are. You?”

  The burning raged within my chest. My heart beat so fast and so strong that it felt ready to burst.

  I am a cyclops. I beat my enemies into submission.

 
“Speak! Speak your name!”

  The burning spread to my belly, which boiled and twisted into knots. I heaved hot air and pellets of ice.

  He said, “Perrin. Your name is Perrin.”

  No, I have a sister named Sera. I loved Sheela. I need to find Rebecca.

  The burning entered my bowels and seared them. I tried to double-over as the force of the splitting and twisting made me lose all control.

  “Speak your name.”

  I cried. The tears quenched the flames of my cheeks and gave immediate relief, which felt so good that I cried more.

  “Tell me your name.”

  My name? What was it?

  Jeran.

  But Jeran was a cyclops, and cyclopes never cry. And since I cried, I could not be Jeran. I was not Alexander, either, that weak magic addict who ruined the lives of everyone around him.

  So who am I?

  One name remained. The name of my new self, of my true self.

  I said, “Perrin.”

  Instead of the fire subsiding, it consumed me. It peeled away skin. It melted fat and charred muscle.

  The Frengarn monster said, “Tell me again.”

  The flames licked away my tears. I fell into a dark pit, one without end, one that welcomed me and promised relief.

  “I am—”

  The hill provided a view of the small village below. The main road ran through the middle, except for where it split to go around a square with a well in the center of the settlement. Four stone buildings lined the square. A dozen homes with thatch roofs were scattered down random lanes. Beyond them stood fields of grain waiting for the harvest.

  In the distance, looming over the land like an ancient sentinel, stood Reganas Eight. In the human world, what they called a mountain had a wide base and a narrow top. A Reganas, however, had a wide top and a narrow base.

  Smoke drifted from the orc armies surrounding the base of the mighty fortress of the upside-down mountain.